I'll actually weigh in on Nebraska first, since my thoughts are more succinct there. I think the team we beat on Saturday Night was a genuinely quality college football team--Top 25 or better. I also think that when the dust settles on the 2021 college football season, the final records won't even be close to reflecting that. Why?
Basically: I think the full body of available evidence at this point suggests that Scott Frost is just a poor leader. Although I certainly believe Nebraska is a better football team than Minnesota in a vacuum: I still believe that the Huskers will let one extremely tough loss (the one to us this past weekend) turn into two, and drop the road game in Minny on Saturday. And if that happens, Frost will lose the locker room (assuming he hasn't already in the past few days), and they'll also fall to Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Iowa to finish 4-8... leaving whoever the poor bastard running the Nebraska Athletic Department is with the unveniable task of trying to sort out what to do next.
In a nutshell: I'm not convinced that any of the Huskers' remaining opponents will have to deal with a Nebraska team anything like the one we saw on Saturday night.
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And then there's the question of how 2021 Wisconsin Football and 2021 Iowa Football compare. I think it was @Gumbo02 who started a thread yesterday saying that he still expects the Badgers to win the West Division. That's a bold prediction, to put it mildly, and a lot of responses in that thread excoriated him for it--and I can tell you that my money is still on Iowa to take the West given their current position, personally. All that said, things get really interesting when you start to look at the numbers for these two teams:
Of course, the single biggest difference between these two teams wasn't explicitly noted in my list above... it's probably the most important metric in the sport of football, and the difference between the two squads is beyond staggering. I'm talking, of course, about Turnover Margin. Iowa is currently #1 in the country, with no one all that close to dethroning them at this time, while Wisconsin is #130 (also known as dead last) and also not terribly close to relinquishing that infamous bottom spot either.
Here's the interesting thing about turnover margin in college football... it's a critical metric in this sport (maybe the most critical), but it's also the absolute hardest to use for predictive purposes, for multiple reasons. We're far enough into the season that I can confidently say Iowa's defense is excellent at making plays to generate takeaways. I'm equally confident that the Wisconsin offense is terrible at protecting and valuing the football. We're well past the point that these numbers can be explained by lucky or unlucky bounces--period.
Even with that said: is Iowa really going to continue to enjoy a +2.5 turnovers per game advantage throughout the rest of the season, and is Wisconsin consistently going to be -2 or worse week after in turnover margin? Maybe both of those teams will stay close to those extraordinary outlier levels all year... if they do, expect Iowa to finish with a superb (11-1 or even 12-0) record, and expect Wisconsin to have to scratch and claw to even get to 6-6 bowl eligibility. But if they don't: you have to figure the outlook for both teams moving forward changes pretty drastically.
This is all just my long-winded way of saying that I'll be very interested to see how things play out in the West Divsion, even as Michigan works to handle its business in the East.
Basically: I think the full body of available evidence at this point suggests that Scott Frost is just a poor leader. Although I certainly believe Nebraska is a better football team than Minnesota in a vacuum: I still believe that the Huskers will let one extremely tough loss (the one to us this past weekend) turn into two, and drop the road game in Minny on Saturday. And if that happens, Frost will lose the locker room (assuming he hasn't already in the past few days), and they'll also fall to Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Iowa to finish 4-8... leaving whoever the poor bastard running the Nebraska Athletic Department is with the unveniable task of trying to sort out what to do next.
In a nutshell: I'm not convinced that any of the Huskers' remaining opponents will have to deal with a Nebraska team anything like the one we saw on Saturday night.
*
And then there's the question of how 2021 Wisconsin Football and 2021 Iowa Football compare. I think it was @Gumbo02 who started a thread yesterday saying that he still expects the Badgers to win the West Division. That's a bold prediction, to put it mildly, and a lot of responses in that thread excoriated him for it--and I can tell you that my money is still on Iowa to take the West given their current position, personally. All that said, things get really interesting when you start to look at the numbers for these two teams:
- Iowa is a very impressive #9 nationally in total defense, but Wisconsin is an even better #2, which is arguably even more impressive when you consider how routinely their offensive and special teams counterparts have been putting them in terrible situations.
- Iowa is a superb #4 nationally in scoring defense. Wisconsin is quite a ways further down the list at #32... but this is where we have to make an important note about the goofy way in which this statistic is recorded in college football. These numbers include all touchdowns surrendered by the offenses and special teams of the team in question... not just the actual defensive unit. Wisconsin has surrendered 102 points this season through 5 games, but a full 28 of those points have been via offense and special teams. Take out those 4 touchdowns that the defensive unit had nothing whatsoever to do with, and Wisconsin shoots up to #7 nationally in scoring defense.
- This is also a good point at which to note that Wisconsin has pretty played a better strength of schedule to this point than Iowa... at least one list I saw the other day has Wisconsin at the #1 strength of schedule at this point in the season.
- And what about offense? Wisconsin's offensive struggles have been well-documented. They are currently sitting at a very poor #79 in total offense, and an absolutely putrid #115 in scoring offense. Ouch! But what of the Hawkeyes?
- Iowa is #49 nationally in scoring offense... not quite in the neighborhood of what I'd classify as abysmal, but still a very low outlier for the supposed #2 team in the country. That said: it's when you start looking at other offensive metrics that things really get astonishing.
- Iowa currently stands at #120 nationally in total offense with a paltry 317.5 yards per game. There are obviously multiple things that go into that statistic, and anyone who has followed the Hawks knows that their other units are routinely putting them in great position with a short field, which affects this number. (More on that in a bit.) That said, they also sit at #121 nationally in yards per play at 4.65, which pretty severely undercuts the idea that short fields can just explain this all away.
- In passing offense, Iowa sits at #100 nationally. They also generally rate low nationally in explosive offensive plays from scrimmage, depending on which metric you use.
- For rushing offense, Iowa comes in at #99 nationally. And if you look at yards per carry, it's even worse... they fall all the way to #114 with an average of 3.19 yards per carry. This is all for a program that fashions its offensive identity on a strong power running game, as you all know.
Of course, the single biggest difference between these two teams wasn't explicitly noted in my list above... it's probably the most important metric in the sport of football, and the difference between the two squads is beyond staggering. I'm talking, of course, about Turnover Margin. Iowa is currently #1 in the country, with no one all that close to dethroning them at this time, while Wisconsin is #130 (also known as dead last) and also not terribly close to relinquishing that infamous bottom spot either.
Here's the interesting thing about turnover margin in college football... it's a critical metric in this sport (maybe the most critical), but it's also the absolute hardest to use for predictive purposes, for multiple reasons. We're far enough into the season that I can confidently say Iowa's defense is excellent at making plays to generate takeaways. I'm equally confident that the Wisconsin offense is terrible at protecting and valuing the football. We're well past the point that these numbers can be explained by lucky or unlucky bounces--period.
Even with that said: is Iowa really going to continue to enjoy a +2.5 turnovers per game advantage throughout the rest of the season, and is Wisconsin consistently going to be -2 or worse week after in turnover margin? Maybe both of those teams will stay close to those extraordinary outlier levels all year... if they do, expect Iowa to finish with a superb (11-1 or even 12-0) record, and expect Wisconsin to have to scratch and claw to even get to 6-6 bowl eligibility. But if they don't: you have to figure the outlook for both teams moving forward changes pretty drastically.
This is all just my long-winded way of saying that I'll be very interested to see how things play out in the West Divsion, even as Michigan works to handle its business in the East.
